Tag: juleselleo

Jules Elleo is working on his first full-length manuscript of poems in Brussels, Belgium.

~~~~~

Last Miles to the Highway

A landscape dresses in a yellow-green rhapsody.
Memories of salt as spring settles in,
but splashes of snow remain
on the side of the road.
Such miraculous mutiny.

The earth no longer holds her breath.
Clouds and cattle leave the ground
on their slow march uphill
to the point where wind turbines change
the shape of the horizon.

Eyes like black birds
extract diamond dust
from forsaken sheaves.
Ancient hectares – bold, bellied, vital.
Dear,
we must take it all in.

A family of four carries sacks and logs
house to house on a donkey-drawn cart.
Their story is yet to be written.
A group of men in silent overalls
is waiting by the curb. A local farmer,
mason or carpenter
has yet to give meaning to their limbs.

Have you seen that lonely tree
tethered to a horse?
How its branches reexamine the poetry
of a pelican landing
on the Danube delta?

I slow down the car and pray
for the engine to die.
Bucharest can wait. Bucharest
& her neons & her asphalt & her lights.
A savage symmetry
we call progress.

Tell me:
how can I ever be
my mother’s son again
when here, at land’s end,
I am my own gospel?